You will always be fond of me. I represent to you all the sins you never had the courage to commit. -Oscar Wilde, The Portrait of Dorian Grey

"Into the eternal darkness, into fire and into ice. " — Dante Alighieri (The Divine Comedy)

"What is a poet? An unhappy man who hides deep anguish in his heart, but whose lips are so formed that when the sigh and cry pass through them, it sounds like lovely music.... And people flock around the poet and say: 'Sing again soon' - that is, 'May new sufferings torment your soul but your lips be fashioned as before, for the cry would only frighten us, but the music, that is blissful.'" — Søren Kierkegaard (Either - Or)

"Wickedness is a myth invented by good people to account for the curious attractiveness of others." — Oscar Wilde

"We are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell." — Oscar Wilde

"In addition to my other numerous acquaintances, I have one more intimate confidant. . . . My depression is the most faithful mistress I have known- no wonder, then, that I return the love." — Søren Kierkegaard

"Those who do not like you fall into two categories; the stupid and the envious." — John Wilmot

"I regret nothing. No woman with any self-respect would have done less. The question of good and evil will always be one of philosophy's most intriguing problems, up there with the problem of existence itself. I'm not quarreling with your choice of issues, only with your intellectually diminished approach. If evil means to be self-motivated, to live on one's own terms, then every artist, every thinker, every original mind, is evil. Because we dare to look through our own eyes rather than mouth cliches lent us from the so-called Fathers. To dare to see is to steal fire from the Gods. This is mankind's destiny, the engine which fuels us as a race. " — Janet Fitch (White Oleander)